This blog is to encorporate discussions on Lost Continents, Catastrophism, The origin of Modern Humans and the Out of Africa theory, Genetics and Human Diversity, The Origin and Spread of Civilization and Cultural Diffusion across the face of the Globe.

Deluge of Atlantis

Deluge of Atlantis

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Was there an ancient "lost civilization" in Cuba?

Was there an ancient "lost civilization" in Cuba?

Today, the public’s
perspective of Native American history is often based on the appearance of the
New World when European colonists first occupied the lands of indigenous
peoples. Mexico, Central America and Peru are viewed as the locations of the
most advanced native civilizations. In the United States, the location of
indigenous ethnic groups in 1776 has in the past been assumed to have been their
location for the previous 1000 years. However, the facts uncovered by
archaeologists in the late 20th century have radically changed our understanding
of the Western Hemisphere’s ancient history.

An earthen pyramid on the
western coast of Cuba probably would have looked like this Olmec mound [Credit:
VR image by Richard Thornton]

Prior to around 1600
BC, the most advanced societies in the northern half of the Western Hemisphere
are now known to have been located in the Southeastern United States, possibly
also in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. The first public “architecture” in
the Western Hemisphere was in northern Louisiana. A circular cluster of mounds
were built around 3500 BC at Watson’s Brake. The cultivation of indigenous
plants began in the Southeast began at least by 3,500 BC. The oldest known
pottery in the Western Hemisphere has been found in the vicinity of Augusta, GA
along the Savannah River and dated to around 2,500 BC. Beginning around
2,200 BC, indigenous peoples along the South Atlantic Coast and especially
around Sapelo Island, GA began creating massive shell rings, which functioned as
villages. The rings were abandoned around 1,600 BC. At this time, there was NO
pottery or large scale public architecture in Mexico. Louisiana platform
villages Around 1,600 BC an
ethnic group began constructing large villages on raised semi-circular, earthen
platforms along tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River. Within these
platform villages, they also built ceremonial mounds. A mound built at the
Poverty Point, LA village site is one of the largest ever constructed in the
United States. The platform villages were long abandoned when the French
arrived in the region in the late 1600s AD, so the identity of the Native ethnic
groups, who occupied them, is not known. The rise of the
Zoque (Olmec) Civlization Around 1,600 BC a
new culture appeared on the Gulf Coast of the Mexican State of Vera Cruz. It
introduced the construction of pyramidal mounds and the technology for making
pottery to Mexico. By 1,500 BC the Zoque were building large villages and
cultivating plants indigenous to Mexico, in addition to the cultivated plants
that are typical of the Caribbean Basin. By 1200 BC the Zoque were building
cities with large pyramids and numerous public structures. The Zoque towns and
ceremonial centers were abandoned around 600 BC. This is also the same time
period that the platform village at Poverty Point, LA was abandoned.
Surviving history of
the Zoque preserved in stone, indicates that the Zoque claimed to have arrived
on the coast of Mexico from a homeland across the Gulf of Mexico in three giant
flotillas of sea-going canoes. This is not an impossible claim because the
ancestors of the Polynesians were exploring the Pacific Basin as early as 50,000
BC! In fact, the stone statues and figurines that the Zoque carved describe
themselves as looking like the Maori Polynesians of New Zealand. The Yuchi
Indians of the Southeastern United States also have a tradition that they
paddled to North America from the “home of the sun” in the East. Archaeologists
search for a “missing link” The Zoque arrived in
Mexico carrying many traits of “civilization.” They did not look like the
indigenous peoples of central Mexico, but definitely journeyed from somewhere
else in the Western Hemisphere. Archaeologists have not determined
conclusively their place of origin. Pseudo-archaeologists through the years
have published books claiming that the Zoque were from central Africa, Egypt,
Phoenicia or even Scandinavia. However, absolutely no archaeological or genetic
evidence backs these theories. It is known that
Polynesians did settle in North America at a very early date. Ancient Polynesian
skeletons have been confirmed in Mexico; perhaps as old as 40,000 BC. Even
North American Indian tribes, such as the Creeks, carry traces of Polynesian
DNA. There was probably a Polynesian culture thriving in Baja California when
the Spanish first arrived in the 1500s. So for an indigenous ethnic group in
Mexico such as the Zoque, having Polynesian features is quite
plausible. Author: Richard
Thornton | Source: Examiner/National [May 06,
2011][-- the attribution of these early populations as Polynesians is mistaken as there were no actual settlements of Polynesians anywhere near that old: the author should have said "Ancestors of the Polynesians". This would suggest that Thor Heyerdahl's theory about Polynesia being settled by Natives from America could have an element of truth to it, however some of the peoples the author mentions are the same ones that I had suggested could be a mixture of Indians (East Indians) and Indonesians, probably also including Oriental settlers as well. That mixture would just about equal what the Polynesians were thought to have come out of-DD]

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